Voice Biometrics In the News

With nearly every part of our lives now connected in some way, identity verification is becoming a constant activity. Typing passwords and such is a tedious task, especially if you’re diligent in changing your passwords regularly and keeping them complex. Fortunately, other forms of identity verification are becoming more popular, making the process simpler, whether talking to a representative or logging into an account.

Among them is voice authentication, which, along with facial recognition, is expected to see significant growth in the coming years. The global voice and face recognition market, which stood at $4.5 billion in 2016, is expected to reach $24 billion by 2025.

A major boost to the voice authentication market will come from the government sector, as defense and military organizations seek to increase their security measures. Growing use in government agencies will also drive the use of voice biometrics and facial recognition in commercial markets as well, especially in banking and other security conscious industries. North America is expected to see the largest growth in adoption, driven by a combination of government and consumer demand.

Customer service organizations at financial institutions and other service providers will leverage advanced authentication techniques to secure access to applications, accounts, and internally for access to facilities, servers, and other infrastructure. For customers, this provides not only an easier, quicker means of authentication, but a more secure one as well. Many organizations have already implemented voice authentication internally and, as customers learn to use these newer forms of verification, they will start demanding them from other vendors, further driving adoption.

In addition, customer satisfaction will naturally increase, as businesses are able to more quickly identify customers and address their needs without going through lengthy manual verification processes. Likewise, customer representatives will deal with fewer customers agitated by constantly having to identify themselves, driving an increase in employee satisfaction.

While the drivers of the voice authentication market may be primarily security driven, the additional benefits in commercial markets go well beyond helping reduce identity fraud, which cost businesses billions each year.

To learn more about how voice authentication can help better secure your business, click here.

After a strong showing in the United States and Europe in recent years, one of the world’s premiere FinTech events, Money2020, headed to Singapore last week for Money2020 Asia 2018. In past years, we’ve kept a close watch on the latest happenings from the event, which you can check out here or here.

But what can we expect to come out of this year’s show, where thousands of attendees, vendors and industry experts will connect to explore the latest happenings in the FinTech space?

If you weren’t able to catch a flight to Singapore yourself, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Here are the top three stories to come out of this year’s event.

Blockchain advances but cryptocurrency growing pains are far from over.No question, there’s a general consensus among Money2020 Asia attendees that blockchain is on the doorstep of revolutionizing FinTech across industries. But interestingly, there’s less certainty in regards to cryptocurrency applications. Consumers have reported widespread identity verification issues at exchanges, and this uncertainty may be starting to take its toll. Ironically, the cryptocurrency market lost $60 billion in value on the last day of the show this year following announced regulatory increases and Google’s advertising ban.

Mobility continues to drive security concerns.The global mobile payment market is poised for a $3 trillion valuation by 2023—a clear indication that both businesses and consumers are going to continue leaning heavily on their personal mobile devices for all manner of transactions in the coming years. But security concerns continue to besiege mobile users, driving up interest in biometric solutions like voice-based identity verification.

Artificial intelligence shows signs of life.With deep machine learning and artificial intelligence technology taking off, it should come as no surprise that AI left an impression at Money2020. Transaction tracking, identity theft and fraud detection are all among the top applications as platforms become more interoperable.

To stay up to date on the latest industry news or to learn more about how VoiceVault’s voice biometric authentication and identity verification solutions can support your business, click here.

As we begin 2018, it’s a good time to stop and reflect on all that’s happened over the last 12 months in the biometrics space. It’s been an exciting year, and one that has been full of exciting industry advancements.

Here are a few of our favorite headlines from 2017:

Wells Fargo CEO endorses voice biometrics: The year started off on a high note, when Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan endorsed voice biometrics while giving a presentation at the FinTech Ideas Festival. Voice biometrics was ranked as third on Sloan’s list of disruptive technologies that will change banking. It was great to see biometrics recognized as a top technology by a major global bank.

Major Bank Adopts Voice Biometrics: The financial industry again made headlines in April, when Australia’s ANZ bank announced plans to offer customers voice biometric identity verification to protect high-value transactions exceeding $1,000. Now, customers can use their voiceprint for authentication purposes. We expect more banks to follow suit in 2018.

VoiceVault releases Fusion 9: In June, VoiceVault released the latest version of Fusion 9, our leading voice biometric engine. This is the most secure and flexible voice biometrics solution that we have released yet. Fusion 9 allows customers to select from hybrid, cloud and on-device-based deployment solutions.

This New Year, take some time to think about your security strategy for 2018. To learn more about how voice biometrics can help, click here. You can also sign up for a free developer trial by clicking here.

Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax announced a data breach this week that could impact upwards of 143 million customers.

Sources indicate that the breach was actually discovered on July 29, when Equifax realized that hackers had gained access to their system. The company believes that hackers were inside of its network from May until July.

Equifax is now working with local and federal law enforcement agencies to rectify the situation, and is in the process of notifying affected customers about the breach. The company is sending out notifications via mail.

The bad news here is that the list of stolen information was very extensive. Hackers were able to access customer names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses and even driver’s license numbers.

What’s more, as many as 209,000 Equifax customers had their credit card information stolen. And 182,000 more customers had data lifted from dispute documents.

This is no breach to take lightly, as 143 million customers amounts to roughly 45 percent of the U.S. population. This means a large portion of your own customers were probably affected. This information could easily be used by criminals to assume your own customers’ identities and conduct fraudulent transactions against your organization.

One way to protect your business from fraud following this massive data breach is to offer enhanced safeguards for account logins and transactions. Voice biometric identity verification, for instance, could be used to securely authenticate customers over the phone or a mobile device. Customers would simply have to recite a short phrase to be granted access into their accounts.

Voice biometrics could be used alongside additional biometric security technologies like facial scanners or fingerprint readers, as well as traditional solutions like security questions, passwords and personal identification numbers.

So the big takeaway here is that the market was just flooded with a trove of sensitive consumer data. It’s time to take action to protect your private accounts.

The recent explosion in cybercrime has forced business leaders across all vertical markets to seek stronger methods of identity verification during transactions.

One technology that is receiving a great deal of attention right now is biometric identity verification. According to a new study from Juniper Research, the total number of mobile payments authenticated by biometrics will increase to 2 billion in 2017. This is a massive biometric payment adoption increase from the 600 million payments that were authenticated with biometrics last year.

What’s more, the mobile biometrics market will continue growing at a compound annual growth rate of 29.3 percent through 2022, which is further evidence of its rising popularity. So if you are just now considering biometrics, rest assured — your company will not be the only one using it.

Why is biometric authentication suddenly so popular? Once seen as a new and unproven technology, biometric identity verification has become much more commonplace. This is due to the proliferation of technologies like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. This year, 60 percent of all smartphone models will ship with embedded fingerprint sensors.

So, are you considering moving forward and adopting biometric payment authentication? If so, it’s important not to rush into an installation. There are several foundational elements that need to be in place in order to have a successful authentication system — like user experience (UX), interoperability, security, modality performance and privacy. These points make up the Five Factor Framework, a system developed by Oxford University and Mastercard for financial service providers. These points can be universally applied to any industry.

VoiceVault has a tremendous resource section, offering developers guidance and support for voice biometric identity verification.

Rest assured, your employees are using smartphones and tablets at work whether you have a “bring your own device” policy or not. Mobile devices are the fastest and most convenient way to chat, search for information and communicate with team members.

Unfortunately, they can also be considered a top enterprise security threat based on the findings from a study conducted by Dimensional Research.

Of the 412 enterprise security leaders that were questioned in the survey, 64 percent don’t believe that their organization has the security software to stop a cyberattack on their mobile devices.

Here are some other terrifying statistics from the study:

20 percent of companies have been victims of a cyberattack through their mobile devices, while 24 percent have no idea if they have been compromised.

94 percent of security professionals claimed they expect a cyberattack on their mobile devices within the next 12 months.

97 percent believe that cyberattacks through mobile devices are increasing.

Unfortunately, there is a big disconnect occurring here.

Respondents appear to be well-aware that their companies aren’t taking mobile security seriously enough, with over half indicating that their company hadn’t used a mobile security solution. And yet, little is being done to change this.

One reason for this is a lack of resources. 53 percent of respondents claimed they could not afford strong security solutions. Other organizations may have a lack of executive awareness or support, an unwillingness to change or concerns about implementing a mobile security policy that would restrict and alienate workers.

Voice biometric identity verification is one cost-effective, and easy technologies that can help enterprises improve mobile security.

“Voice is a unique biometric,” explained VoiceVault EVP of Sales and Marketing Julia Webb during a recent Biometric Authentication podcast. “Unlike other biometric voice can be used anywhere there is a microphone, which makes it inexpensive to deploy. And it can be just as accurate as other biometric technologies such as EyeVerify, which was recently acquired by Alibaba, or even [Apple’s} Touch ID. And all we need is a small amount of speech in order to authenticate an individual.”

You may have read the news that the BBC have successfully caused HSBC’s Voice ID system, provided by another voice biometric vendor, to falsely accept the non-identical twin of an enrolled user. This occurred after the ninth attempt that the twin took to access the user’s bank account. Thus, causing the issue to be that of failing to follow best practices rather than a failing biometric element. Since all biometrics are statistical in nature, measures must be taken to ensure that the likelihood of a false accept is as low as possible. Current best practices can include account or device lock-out after multiple failures, which would have prevented the BBC’s false accept.

To further help financial organizations protect and prevent against this recent type of breach, VoiceVault is excited to share with you the upcoming release of VoiceVault Fusion 9. Version 9 of our core, proprietary, engine includes additional controls, new biometric modes, seamless integration with other authentication factors, and detailed reporting with location services. Official announcement and details forthcoming in the very near future.

In addition to staying on the forefront of voice biometric technology, we pride ourselves in working collaboratively with our clients and partners to suit each individual use case. With over 10 years of experience in the market, our team is more than happy to talk through the end-to-end statistics and recommend an array of additional methods of best practice, including the implementation of multifactor authentication.

As mentioned by a spokesperson from HSBC, since launching last year, HSBC’s Voice ID system has been successful in reducing fraud. Therefore, voice biometrics are still more secure than historic knowledge-based-authentication systems, such as passwords and PINs.

Consumer interest in biometric banking is very strong in the UK right now. According to one recent study, 56 percent of UK customers actually prefer biometrics to traditional authentication solutions like passwords — even though there is still some general confusion among customers about how biometrics work.

Another study found that British consumers are almost twice as likely to trust banks over government agencies with storing and keeping biometric data safe.

There’s just one problem:

In order for customers to move beyond passwords and use biometric technologies, banks need to provide access to them. And there are still some mixed feelings in the financial community about the role that biometrics should play in authenticating logins and transactions. Many people still believe that passwords are better for protecting consumer accounts.

Passwords vs. biometrics: The debate is on

Consumer demand has forced the conversation to move forward. Recently, the Digital Banking Club (founded by Intelligent Environments, the digital financial services providers) gathered at the Law Society, London to address the motion “This house believes the password will never be replaced by your body.”

The debate was chaired by Retail Banker International Editor and Digital Banking Club Chair, Douglas Blakey. Guest panelists from Forrester, Fujitsu and Intelligent Environments spoke for the motion, while representatives from Secco, DWC and MasterCard spoke against it.

Before the debate, 42 percent of people agreed that the password will never be replaced by the body. But after the debate, just 19 percent agreed with the motion.

Opinions about biometrics varied from expert to expert. For example, some panelists voiced concern over false acceptances (FA) and false rejects (FR) in biometric systems. There is a small risk, in other words, that a biometric solution could malfunction and grant access to an imposter or reject the right user. This problem, however, can be addressed by embedding multifactor security layers. If one layer is breached, a hacker will still have to enter further credentials.

What’s more, some technologies — like VoiceVault’s voice biometric identity verification — come with very low FA and FR rates. VoiceVault guarantees a FA rate of just 0.01 percent, and a FR rate of less than 5 percent. Not all biometric technologies will offer the same level of protection.

We can also argue that false acceptances and rejects happen all the time with passwords when accounts get hacked, or locked.

Will we ever see beyond passwords?

It largely depends on who you ask. Some of the panel at the Digital Banking Club debate, believe that while biometrics will be popular, passwords will never be completely replaced. However, other panelists argued biometrics will eventually replace passwords, but in time.

One panelist likened favoring passwords over biometrics to favoring a horse and cart over a car. The technology is outdated, inefficient and insecure. The same panelist mentioned a study from the Netherlands, conducted by Mastercard, where nine out of 10 participants indicated they would like to replace their passwords with biometrics. And almost 75 percent of users are convinced that biometric security will decrease fraud.

What was interesting is that every single panel member used their iPhone fingerprint scanners to access their debate notes on the podium…

So, should your bank abandon passwords right now?

For now, you don’t have to worry about replacing passwords altogether. But you can look beyond passwords and start phasing them out with biometrics, which can coexist nicely with passwords.

Your best bet is to give customers a variety of different security options, and let them choose the ones they are most comfortable with. If you try to force any technologies on them, you are liable to experience negative blowback.

The solution, which is currently being referred to as a “lip motion password,” requires an end user to speak a unique phrase into the microphone of a device. The biometric engine then scans the shape, movement and even texture of the user’s lips to determine their authenticity.

As of right now, the researchers have a patent for the solution and expect to deploy it soon for verifying financial transactions. It could also be used to verify ATM transactions and to grant access to private premises.

This development is fantastic news for the biometric identity verification industry, and one that we are excited about here at VoiceVault. Once the technology is cleared for commercial use, it will offer businesses yet another option for secure and convenient mobile authentication.

Security-minded administrators should feel good about using this type of facial recognition software, too. As Forrester pointed out in its Biometric Authentication Q1 2017 report, facial recognition software has significantly improved thanks to recent advancements in standards and algorithm development. The technology is becoming more secure, and more reliable than it was in the past.

It’s important to realize, though, that lip motion passwords will not be any better or worse than other leading biometric technologies like iris and fingerprint scanners, or voice biometrics. Rather, it will be just another option to consider. Administrators should think about the positives and drawbacks for each technology. And best practices call for deploying multiple biometric solutions for greater convenience and increased security.

At the end of the day, though, your business needs to be using at least one of these technologies to protect its mobile accounts. Many companies are still way behind in their information security efforts, despite the fact that powerful security solutions are readily available in plug-and-play format. In fact, according to a recent study only one in five companies now fully consider information security in their strategy and planning.

VoiceVault’s voice biometric authentication solution, ViGo, is cloud-based and can be easily embedded into any application or contact center service.

Free demos are also available if you are new to the technology. You can find out more information by clicking here.

Interest in mobile banking may be strong among consumers today, but user adoption continues to lag behind. According to one study, a third of consumers in the U.S. and U.K. claim they avoid mobile banking applications. About one third say will never use them. And almost three quarters of people in who agree blame security.

In light of this, many banks are reassessing their mobile security strategies as they attempt to make them more attractive for customers. We are seeing an increasing number of banks offering multifactor security options that integrate traditional password and answer-based authentication technologies with cutting-edge biometrics like voice, fingerprint and iris scanners.

Just recently, for instance, Australia’s ANZ bank announced it will begin offering customers voice biometric security to protect high-value mobile transactions of $1,000 or more. Previously, customers had to make these transactions in person.

“A person’s voice has five to ten times as many security points than other methods such as fingerprints so we know this will improve security and be welcomed by our customers,” stated ANZ Managing Director Customer Experience and Digital Channels Peter Dalton.

Dalton is referring to the fact that voice biometric engines can register points like the average pitch, speed and tone of a user’s voice. All of them must match in order to approve authentication, which makes it one of the most complex secure options out of all the biometric solutions on the market.

For years, VoiceVault’s mobile voice biometrics solution, ViGo, has been protecting high value mobile transfers for a major global bank as well as in many other financial institutions. VoiceVault has protected billions of dollars in transfers.

To learn more about how VoiceVault can protect your organization, click here.